MENTALLY ILL PRISONERS.
Silence, dead silence, was broken when the prison guard screeched opens the cell door. Guards slowly moved their eyes around the cell. The cold cement walls were covered with scribble and the letter w was written on the wall at least one hundred times. One of the guards noticed a pair of sneakers on the floor. However, they were missing their shoelaces. The mystery was solved seconds later when the guards looked up and saw the limp posture of his body, the ghostlike complexion of his skin, and the shoelaces wrapped so tight around his neck that they were starting to rip. The mentally ill inmate in cell block 23A had hung himself. Stories like this occur within prisons everyday, yet no one seems to notice, or even bother to care. Mentally ill inmates are a growing problem in prisons nationwide because they are a threat to themselves and others, but prisons and administrators continue to ignore it. .
The reason why mentally ill inmates are a problem in prisons is because there are too many of them. The numbers of mentally ill prisoners are growing rapidly. Statistics from numerous sources, not only point out the outrageous numbers, they allow society to observe why this problem needs to be addressed. According to Earl Stahl's article "Growing Population of Mentally Ill Offenders Redefines Correctional Facility Design," the amount of attention that needs to go into the care and help of mentally ill inmates have risen dramatically in recent years. Local jail, state, and correctional facilities have seen a huge number of mentally ill offenders being put behind bars for the second and .
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third time. National trends indicate that these statistics will only get larger as the decade goes on before ever coming to a more reasonable number.
